Day Books and VAT

So far we have emphasised the importance of the double-entry system of bookkeeping. For each transaction which we have looked at we have explained the double entry involved — that is, the debit to one account and the credit to another. This is an important principle, which has to be understood. However, the number of transactions quickly becomes very large in even the smallest of businesses and to record every transaction as a double entry would be unwieldy. In the life of a business there are many transactions of a similar nature — i.e. there will be many credit sale transactions. The purpose of day books is to summarise all of these transactions of a like nature and to make one entry in the ledger for the sum total of all those transactions. These books are also called books of prime entry or books of original entry. They are not part of the double-entry system. We shall now examine these various books.